I chose this article from "The Reading Teacher" because the title sounded interesting and after reading the abstract, I wanted to know more. In class, we talk about creating a literacy environment for our students, and this article seemed to have a similar topic. Although we have studied many ways to create this environment for reading, I wanted to hear a perspective from a teacher in the classroom recently. After reading this article, the two major concepts that Donalyn Miller focuses on are making time for reading and the opportunity to choose what to read.Miller starts out the article by showing us how all of her students were asking her questions concerning the books that they were reading. It was intriguing to see how many of her students were reading on their own time, and it made m
e want to know her secret. After her introduction, she states a fact that we have well-learned during this course: the amount of time that a student reads is directly related to the student's success. This means that the more a student reads, the better they will be at not only reading, but all of their studies. This also means that the weakest readers who do not read as much will only continue to fall behind. "The achievement gap between our strongest readers and our weakest readers grows wider each passing year" states Miller. This is when she provides her suggestions of time and choice to improve readers.
Miller strongly believes that making time for students to read is very important for them to become good readers. The more a student reads, the better they will be at reading. This is known as the "Matthew Effect", found in chapter 5 of Graves and is described as "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" only applied to reading. To make sure that this gap does not occur, she sets aside time in her classroom each day for all of her students to read. She calls silent reading time a "luxury" for most teachers because they typically do not have time to spare for reading when standardized tests require so much preparation these days. Miller understands this but feels that it is so important that she still manages to find time for it. She also suggests that students carry books around with them wherever they go in case they have some free time. I love this idea and actually do this too. Instead of waiting for something and wasting time, she says that having a book with you gets rid of that boredom. In my opinion, younger students are not going to pick up this habit immediately, but over time, hopefully they will start to see the use. Any time spent reading is time spent improving, and Miller encourages her students to read whenever they can.Another element of creating a classroom full of readers is choice. Miller explains that this is the key way to motivating students. When students have the opportunity to choose what they read, they will have more incentive to actually read it. After discussions with her students, Miller decides to no longer have whole-class novel units because
there is no motivation and excitement about the book the class reads. It is hard to find a book that engages the large range of interests and reading abilities of students in the class. It also decreases motivation to be forced to read a book. "Learners who lack input in decision making feel powerless and demotivated--this is true for adults, for teachers, and for our students." This is why Miller lets students make their own decision about what book they want to read. She ensures that they are still learning the skills and knowledge they should be for their level, but incorporates choice which motivates the students to want to read. Miller also gave brief book talks or used sections of books for lessons to give students a taste of different books out there. This helped the students find books they were interested in and feel confident that they were not only making their own choice of book, but a good choice that would fit them.
This article relates to our course in many ways. It relates to chapter 3 "Motivation and Engagement" because both mention creating an environment that encourages reading and making choice a big aspect of motivation. It also relates to chapter 5 "Differentiation Instruction and Intervention" and the concept of the "Matthew Effect." This article is connected to chapter 8 "Fluency" because it focuses on wide reading in different texts to promote motivation. Lastly, it connects to chapter 12 "Encouraging Independent Reading and Reader Response" because it suggests providing more time to simply just read to improve a student's skills in reading.Although I am not teaching reading in the future, a few good ideas from this article can be applied to any kind of subject. The more one does a task, they better they will become at it. I will use this in my future classroom. When students practice something more and more, they will only excel in it. For example, I may have students do flashcards during classroom time. The more they practice math, the better they will become. Another good concept from this article was the idea of student choice. In my future classroom, I want to let students have a say in what to do. For example, if we are doing a project, maybe I will have a few different options of appropriate things to turn in. These basic ideas of repetition and choice can be applied in any type classroom.
